The current fight to Save Victoria Park has brought to the forefront of our minds how fragile the protection for our natural assets actually is.

In The Gap, we are very lucky to be able to enjoy a relatively natural environment. We heard from a recent resident that their children, which were recently growing up in another multimillion city, were amazed at what they saw here – butterflies, birds, lizards, the occasional wallaby, koala and goanna.  Much of this is due to our suburb’s surrounding bushland and also residents’ gardens. Many residents also value nature highly and volunteer in one of the many bush care groups, community gardens and nurseries, or appreciate it in their photographs and artworks.

Can we place a value on these surroundings? This is difficult but has been attempted by economists and scientists. For example, in 2018, the combined value of natural resources of the earth has been valued at $125Trillion (add 112 zeros) by the world economic forum. Others however have stated that there is an intrinsic value of nature that could not and should not be expressed by a monetary value. An overarching “worldview and lifeframes” perspective was offered, that summarises the many ways in which people value nature, and takes into consideration whether we see nature as something we live from or live in.

This European Union article describes it as clearly “priceless” as it provides the essential building blocks without which we would cease to exist, and in addition has cultural value that cannot be given a price tag. The article does acknowledge however that giving it a price tag as a limited resource can be valuable to improve the protection of natural assets.

Going one step further “personhood” has been given to some natural  assets such as rivers as another means to increase its protection, with Ecuador and New Zealand being trailblazers in using this strategy. All of these various ways to protect nature depend on humans taking responsibility and seeing themselves as guardians of their environment. As The Gap Sustainability Initiative, we hope to contribute a little in this way to protect The Gap’s natural assets as much possible for future generations.